As you say DMB. And I fail to understand how some people can miss the simple
logic presented by Pirsig.
I mean just look at the words: "Communism and socialism, programs for
intellectual control of society" - It's simple isn't it?
You quite correctly state that "And if money is a measure of social quality,
which is what Pirsig says, then capitalism and the so-called "free market"
is an ideology that rejects intellectual control of social level values." -
a simple enough point one would say, and since this isn't hard to follow one
would think that everyone thinking in terms of the MOQ would see the Good in
intellectual patterns wanting to create social patterns that serve
intellectual ones.
We could invent a new "ism" if need be and emphasise the need for individual
freedom - even though that's exactly what Marx wanted - freedom for the
people, freedom from the slavery it means to have to dedicate the better
part of your life to earn enough social credit to be able to survive,
freedom from having to worried about being able to afford medical treatment,
schooling for your children - all of those things that tie peoples minds
down. - We could invent a new name for it, but the idea would at it's base
be the same - to free people from their slavery under social level patterns
and thus serve evolution and Quality.
[original message:]
Pirsig wrote:
Communism and socialism, programs for intellectual control of society,
were confronted by the reactionary forces of fascism, a program for the
social control of intellect.
Craigerb replied:
International socialism/national socialism--not a lot to choose from.
dmb says:
Craig's comment is a fine example of the kind of ideological distortions I
was just complaining about. Pirsig has made a clear and simple statement
contrasting intellectual level "isms" and social level "isms" using
concrete historical examples. By referring to fascism as "national
socialism" he has distorted and confused Pirsig's simple point, as if that
label accurately characterized Hitler, Franco and Mussolini, the founder
of fascism. By that logic the People's Republic of China is run by the
Republican party. By that logic, the choice between FDR's New Deal and
Hitler's NAZI policies doesn't give us "a lot to choose from". One saved
the Western Democracies and the other murdered tens of millions, but hey,
why quibble over little details like that, eh? See, this is what keeps us
from getting anywhere. Pirsig's explanations about the difference between
social and intellectual values are in large part centered around the
historical conflict between these various "isms" but
with nonsense like this going on we can never have an intelligent
conversation about the differences between them. I guess that's bound to
happen when we're talking about values, ranking values. By definition,
this is what people care about and fight about. Wars have been fought over
it and these political conflicts continue up to this moment....
dmb said:
...the New Deal is classic American liberalism and the conservative
movement - along with the boys from the Chicago school of ecomonics - has
been taking it apart bit by bit for decades.
Craig replied:
Thankfully. The challenge for us at MD is to present the intellectual
backing for the 2 systems & to evaluate which has the higher value.
dmb says:
Well, you can probably defend fascism intellectually (if you can overcome
the moral qualms) but that would only mean your defense is intellectual.
The thing you'd be defending would still be a glorification of social
authority. And if money is a measure of social quality, which is what
Pirsig says, then capitalism and the so-called "free market" is an
ideology that rejects intellectual control of social level values. And
this is only consistent with fascism as it was understood by its founder,
who said, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it
is the merger of state and corporate power". I mean, if one understands
the differences between the various ideologies discussed by Pirsig then
the difference between the two top static levels is quite clear.
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